Instead of tackling affordability, House Republicans bully trans college studentshttps://www.advocate.com/politics/national/republicans-target-transgender-college-students 🔗Christopher Wiggins (25 June 2026)
House Republicans advanced two higher education bills Thursday that LGBTQ+ advocates warn would weaken campus nondiscrimination protections and allow student groups to exclude LGBTQ+ people while still receiving recognition, funding, and other benefits from public colleges and universities.
The Republican-controlled House Committee on Education and Workforce voted to advance H.R. 5505, the Equal Campus Access Act, and adopted an anti-trans amendment to H.R. 2555, the Freedom of Association in Higher Education Act.
California U.S. Rep. Mark Takano, chair of the Congressional Equality Caucus and a senior member of the committee, sharply condemned the votes.
Instead of standing up for students' rights or fighting to lower the skyrocketing cost of higher education, Republicans chose to prioritize a bill, the so-called Equal Campus Access Act, that would require minority students to subsidize their own discrimination and empower certain college and university student groups to discriminate against minority students," Takano said in a statement.
